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December 26, 2022
"Felony Sentencing in New York City: Mandatory Minimums, Mass Incarceration, and Race"
The title of this post is the title of this new report from the Center for Court Innovation authored by Fred Butcher, Amanda B. Cissner, and Michael Rempel. The full report runs over 30 pages, but this CCI webpage provides this two-page summary which includes this brief accouting of the report's findings:
Of the more than 65,000 such arrests in 2019, we found a third of people arrested were potentially subject to a mandatory minimum. That doesn’t mean everyone ultimately received a minimum prison sentence, but the wide eligibility confers outsized power on prosecutors; in plea negotiations, prosecutors can wield the threat of a higher charge with guaranteed, generally lengthy, prison time against someone hesitant to accept a plea.
Arrests, and with them exposure to charges eligible for a mandatory minimum, are the formal entry-point to the criminal legal system. Our analysis found Black people accounted for 51% of people arrested on a felony in New York City in 2019, more than double their representation in the general population; for white people, the figure was 11%. For arrests with exposure to a mandatory minimum, the disparity was even more striking: Black and Hispanic/Latinx New Yorkers combined to make up 91% of such arrests; for white people, the proportion was only 7%.
Looking at the subgroup of those convicted of a felony, Black people were also more likely to suffer imprisonment and almost six of ten convictions carrying a mandatory minimum sentence went to a Black person.
Indeed, while race was a significant predictor of whether someone convicted of a felony received a prison sentence — 58% of Black versus 43% of white people — an even stronger predictor was a prior felony conviction. Here the overlap — or, for people of color, doublebind — is considerable. Systemic issues such as underinvestment paired with over-policing of Black and Brown communities increase the likelihood that members of these communities will acquire the kind of criminal history that can trigger, not only a sentence of incarceration, but also exposure to a mandatory minimum (whether actualized or used against them to leverage a less favorable plea).
December 26, 2022 at 10:24 AM | Permalink
Comments
Where to start?
“We found…confers outsized power on prosecutors.” That’s not a finding. It’s a bias prevalent throughout the paper (or at least the abstract).
And, of course, the usual issue with such “reports.” It merely compares minority vs white incarceration, without addressing the simple fact that minorities commit more crime and crimes with more severe penalties.
Considering most minority crime is “black on black,” I’d say the increased sentences and incarceration rates are the opposite of “racism.” Innocent blacks suffer the most from crime.
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Dec 26, 2022 4:59:50 PM
To our good friend TarlsQtr, your argument about minorities committing more crime is an intellectually dishonest argument. But, I get it, one cannot resist the urge at sanctimony as a defense against the knowledge of a barbaric past. There is a quote by the late James Baldwin that comes to mind when I think of "your" argument:
"I have often wondered, and it is not a pleasant wonder, just what white Americans talk about with one another. I wonder this because they do not, after all, seem to find very much to say to me, and I concluded long ago that they found the color of my skin inhibitory. This color seems to operate as a most disagreeable mirror, and a great deal of one's energy is expended in reassuring white Americans that they do not see what they see. This is utterly futile, of course, since they do see what they see. And what they see is a disastrous, continuing, present, condition which men---aces them, and for which they bear inescapable responsibility. But since, in the main, they appear to lack the energy to change this condition, they would rather not be reminded of it. Does this mean that, in their conversations with one another, they merely make reassuring sounds? It scarcely seems possible, and yet, on the other hand, it seems all too likely.
Whatever they bring to one another, it is certainly not freedom from guilt.
The guilt remains, more deeply rooted, more securely lodged, than the oldest of trees; and it can be unutterably exhausting to deal with people who, with dazzling ingenuity, a tireless agility, are perpetually defending themselves against charges which one has not made. One does not have to make them. The record is there for all to read. It resounds all over the world. It might as well be written in the sky.
One wishes that Americans, white Americans, would read, for their own sakes, this record, and stop defending themselves against it. Only then will they be enabled to change their lives. The fact that Americans, white Americans, have not yet been able to do this---to face their history, to change their lives---hideously menaces the country. Indeed, it menaces the entire world."
Those words by Mr.Baldwin were written with you in mind my friend. So please, for the sake of us all---and more importantly, for your own sake, when you decide to pen who commits, or has committed, the most crime be sure that you have had the temerity to take a walk through history and understand that historic crimes beget other crimes.
Posted by: Eric A. Hicks | Dec 27, 2022 7:38:12 AM
What inane nonsense.
My comment doesn’t even deal with the “why.” Do I believe that minorities just became that way because of some genetic failure or inferiority? Of course not.
I didn’t discuss the why for a couple of reasons. First, the paper is not about that, other than contemporary myths such as one can merely look at incarceration rates and declare the modern “system” is the main or complete cause. Second, the reason is not that important. We are at a place in time and concentrating on blaming slavery, Jim Crow, and The Great Society, which increased bastardy in minority communities by multiples, is just admiring the problem. We can’t go back and fix it nor does focusing on it change anything today. The question is how to move forward and the author, or you, ignoring the facts of it doesn’t move us in that direction.
If you want to see “sanctimony,” you may want to look inward.
PS Here is something I wrote on this very website in a different thread the other day. Perhaps if you asked questions instead of pretending you had the power to look into their souls, you wouldn’t look so foolish right now:
“No one can undo the crimes of the past, slavery, Jim Crow, etc. And there is no doubt that it has negatively impacted the lives of minorities through the present time. However, all we can do now is give equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. People have to earn that themselves.
Until the lessons of how to be successful (nuclear families, loyalty, dedication to God, community, and family) are taught and learned, you are just admiring the problem.”
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Dec 27, 2022 11:24:06 AM
Your point is well-taken my friend. You actually made those comments in a reply to one of my posts. I don't disagree with you much of what you said, for what it's worth. My problem is with the "however." There's an old saying by William Faulkner that notes that, "[t]he past is never dead. It's not even past."
We no doubt reside in the worlds greatest country. And yet, it could be so much more of a 'perfect union' if we only possessed the necessary courage to truly honestly and holistically confront the past of our nation. We don't confront it by, as you declare, (allegedly) "making all things equal." The remnants of our past still presently infect our institutions and policy-making. One need not look far to see the evidence. Your "however" disregards this notion and is a direct rebuke of Mr.Faulkner's words. Moreover, it is no different than those who use slavery and Jim Crow, among other things, as a crutch.
As the worlds greatest nation, we don't simply build over such a sordid foundation; we are capable of so much better. We tear down that structure and commit to rebuilding in a way that this nation must (and can) if it is to ever achieve the full measure of its greatness.
In closing my friend, when I look in the mirror, I do not see sanctimony at all. I see one who does not have it all (or even most things) figured out but who knows that collectively "we" all can fix it or at least make great strides in that direction.
Posted by: Eric A. Hicks | Dec 27, 2022 2:24:37 PM
@ Eric Hicks--good grief--ever live in NYC--there is a racial disparity in who is committing crimes. That's just the way it is.
Posted by: federalist | Dec 27, 2022 3:15:49 PM
You cannot “confront” the past, only the future. Looking backward as an excuse for today (looking back to know where we came from is different altogether) only opens the door for people to fail. I failed? It must be racism. I didn’t get that job? Racism.
What goos does that do anyone. In specific cases of real racism, I’d be right there fighting it next to you.
If you want to discuss specific actions/cases that are racist, I’m right there with you. However, I’m not going to involve myself in the virtue signaling, vague, and worthless “systemic racism” garbage.
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Dec 28, 2022 4:05:51 PM
